Author Profile – Natalie Serber

Welcome to another of our author profile features. Today we’d like to introduce WITS writer in residence Natalie Serber, who grew up in Santa Cruz, California, but currently resides here in Portland, Oregon.

What was the most recent book you read?

A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore

What are you currently working on?

I am currently working on a novel, set in Boring, Oregon, about a mildly unhappy family, struggling with their changing geometry. Parents coping with the landscape of a marriage shadowed by cancer, teenagers who no longer need or want them in the immediate way they once did, teenagers who make their own, sometimes hilarious, sometimes catastrophic, decisions.

What are you currently reading?

Two books by Deborahs; Twilight of the Superheroes, by Deborah Eisenberg, and Curious Attractions, by Debra Spark. If you know another good Debra book, please tell me.

What did you read growing up?

I read Harriet the Spy, Laura Ingalls Wilder books (for a while I carried around an onion wrapped in a dishtowel, pretending it was my doll.) Nancy Drew, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Kurt Vonnegut.

A Recent Favorite book?

Lush Life, by Richard Price

Authors?

Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri, E.M. Forster, Tony Hoagland, Junot Diaz, Deborah Eisenberg

How does Oregon influence your writing?

My novel is set in Boring, Oregon and in Portland.

How did you get involved with Literary Arts?

When I moved to Portland, six years ago, I was thrilled about the Arts and Lectures Series and bought season tickets. The first one I attended was Jeffrey Eugenides and I was ecstatic to see so many people walking toward the Schnitz. There were traffic control people with those lit wands as if it was a Stones Concert, and I thought to myself, this is the perfect place for me to live–people take writing and literature seriously.

How is Literary Arts important for writers?

Literary Arts supports writers in multiple ways, first, they give us the opportunity to go into a classroom and share our passion with students. Some writers say that teaching saps them for their own creative work, I find that I am invigorated by my work with students, by their energy, and by the fresh way they look at things.

Where do you go to do your writing?

Reed College Library

When writing, do you set goals for yourself (i.e. ten pages per day)?

Gasp! 10 pages per day….I am so depressed right now. I am happy if I write 2 pages per day. I am painfully slow and deliberate in my writing.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to aspiring writers?

Carry a pen and paper with you wherever you go. Pay attention to the world. And, by all means, read, read, read widely.

Did you write in high school?

Yes I did, but I never had a creative writing class or a visiting writer. I think my high school career would have been much more successful if I’d been exposed to writing, to a wider range of authors, to understanding that what I had to say was valid and worthwhile.

What does WITS do for the student?

Writers in the Schools puts a working artist in the classroom. We come in, we share with the students how we work, how we translate our life experiences in our writing, and hopefully we create a little crack, a little ‘aha’ moment, opening the students to possibilities, to trusting that their ideas are unique and important. When my students share their work aloud, I can see in their faces both fear and pride. It is powerful.

What school do you teach at?

I will be at Marshall this spring.

What has been the biggest reward about doing WITS?

I want to describe that time in the classroom, when I have given the students a prompt, whether it is a piece of music, a phrase, an image, or a line from a poem and we all begin to write, often hesitantly at first, but then, I look up, and I see bent heads and hear pens moving, and everyone is writing–something happens to the air in the room and we become unified, we are all having the same experience, putting down our ideas. I love that.

Tags: Literary Arts, Natalie Serber, Portland Arts & Lectures, WITS
Posted in Author Profile |